NASA Spoofs 'Gangnam Style' Video

One of the newest in a long line of "Gangnam Style" parody videos, NASA's Johnson Space Center just released its own spoof of singer PSY's cross-over Korean pop hit.

The Houston space center's parody, "NASA Johnson Style," uses footage from the International Space Station and scenes from the center itself to highlight some of the work researchers do on the campus, which is home base for NASA's astronaut corps.

A few astronauts even make cameos in parody video. The astronaut shooting the PSY impersonator a disapproving look a little less than two minutes into the video is Mike Massimino — a veteran of two space shuttle missions, both of which visited the Hubble Space Telescope.

Clayton Anderson, a member of the Expedition 15 mission to the International Space Station, can be seen dancing at about the 2:30 mark. And Tracy Caldwell Dyson, who lived aboard the station for 174 days in 2010, pops up a few different times lip synching from inside a space capsule. A couple of the other guest stars include astronauts Michael Coats and Ellen Ochoa.

Astronaut Mike Massimino looks on as a student sings "NASA Johnson Style" in a video published on December 14.Credit: Reel NASA (via YouTube)

This isn't the first time NASA has participated in a viral video phenomenon. Earlier this year, the JPL Curiosity team released their own take on LMFAO's "People of Walmart (Sexy and I Know It)" with the much more subdued, "We're NASA and We Know It (Mars Curiosity)."

The original "Gangnam Style" music video first went viral a month after its release in August, and since then has been watched more than 900,000,000 times. It overtook Justin Bieber's "Baby" as the most viewed video ever on YouTube near the end of November.

Miriam Kramer

Miriam Kramer joined Space.com as a staff writer in December 2012. Since then, she has floated in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight, felt the pull of 4-Gs in a trainer aircraft and watched rockets soar into space from Florida and Virginia. She also serves as Space.com's lead space entertainment reporter, and enjoys all aspects of space news, astronomy and commercial spaceflight.
Miriam has also presented space stories during live interviews with Fox News and other TV and radio outlets. She originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee where she and her family would take trips to dark spots on the outskirts of town to watch meteor showers every year. She loves to travel and one day hopes to see the northern lights in person. You can follow Miriam on Twitter and Google+.